This new build hit the sweet spot. Giving up Pioneer means giving up some potentially more explosive starts, but the extra lands help the consistency.
Dead Reckoning also gives some play against aura and Kiln Fiend decks and using it with Shadowborn Demon feels dirty.

I tried LegenVD's deck yesterday for some single player fun and pioneer isn't as bad as you guys are saying. Other than the obvious land dropping he is good recursion of the masked admirers and is another creature for craterhoof. This brings me to my main point. Craterhoof Behemoth is super broken in this deck. He was 90% of my wins. With only 3 creatures in play he a minimum of 24 trample damage. He is just insane damage. I actually went over the top of the garruk deck that managed to get out both rampaging baloths and produced 4 tokens with them.

The main thing I missed was pelakka wurms. There were a few times I desperately needed some extra life and the one-of never showed up. Is there room for cultivate in there? Some ramp would be nice I think. Thanks for the fun build LegenVD.

You just posted the change while I was writing this. I'll check it out.

Glad you like it

In order to squeeze in all those early creatures, there was little room for fatties.
The idea is that you can fetch Pelakka Wurm with the Demons, but often getting a Craterhoof wins on the spot.

In the early game you can aggressively trade your creatures or even chump if you have a Spawning, because the lategame is so ridiculous.

All the cards from the expansion are really pulling their weight.

I would still cut a Rescue and a land for the other two Wurms. With the Wayfinders, Visionaries, Ragers, and Muses you should basically never miss a land drop ever. I'm still not sold on Rescue at all, actually, but two feels like enough if you want to be playing it.

Long time lurker here. Rescue is one of those cards that I think you need to give another shot, Hakeem. So many Golgari I've played against use it for an early bomb that can't easily killed. Turn 5 Griselbrand seems common in games I play vs Golgari. That said, I don't think you need 3 in a deck and your advice on more worms and 24 land is correct. Going to see how Legends deck compares to Hakeems once xbox 360 gets the update.

Did some calculations and with 6 desirable fatties in the deck the chance of getting at least one in the graveyard by playing a Wayfinder/Assistant is 30%, 2 of them makes that 60%, 3 of them 75%.
Rescue just gives free wins early and has a lot of value late. Whenever there's an opportunity to cheat mana by reanimating, there's potential for abuse.

Now you could argue that you want even more fatties to increase the chance, but then the deck becomes more clunky and the other plans don't works as well.

Cutting a land for a second Wurm might be correct however.

Craterhoof is making me think twice about Rescue because the Behemoth overcomes just how slow it is otherwise.

I still think it's too cute overall, though, because the deck has no problems hardcasting these dudes. T5 isn't a huge jump in speed and rarely will you be casting this on T5 anyway.

I have played this archetype a LOT if that counts for anything.

If it were up to me; - Phyrexian Rager - Land for + 2 Pelakka Wurms.

I know you are a way more skilled player than I am and I play most of your decks I play your Golgari almost to the card ( I think I have one copy of Suffer the Past to counter Seance/graveyard decks). Rescue can be played turn 5, but most of the time it catches players off guard by putting down an extra 7/7 on their end step. I think it warrants testing a bit with Craterhoof. I'll let you know how I fare. Now will someone make a good Dimir deck with the new vampires?

So here are a few random thoughts I have on the Golgari Graveyard archetype. The deck does best in my experience when you run as many creature cards as possible. A lot of wins you get are from just going wide with dudes and smashing down, but you also don't mind removal or combat trades because they feed the Spider plan (which is actually plan B in my deck, believe it or not). I'm not sure the deck even needs Craterhoof because Elder of Laurels ends the game just as fast. Elder is also a 2/3 for three so he can come down against aggro decks and block well while 'Hoof is just chilling out in your hand. I also think Rescue from the Underworld is a lot weaker than Nemesis of Mortals in these strategies. You may get a T5 fatty every now and then but I'm getting a T3 5/5 just as often which is much stronger. Sheoldred is a no-brainer for the deck, though, so I have to find room for her somewhere. Other than her, my deck won't be changing because it's just ridiculous as it is.

On another note, this Dimir deck has been doing surprisingly well for me though you have to read the post below as well because I haven't updated the table yet:

http://forum.nogoblinsallowed.com/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=4683&start=250#p256598

LegenVD,

Your numbers looked a bit off, so I did the math. Assuming a 60-card deck, with a Wayfinder hit on turn-2 you have about a 29% chance of getting one of your desirable fatties in the graveyard. The odds of dropping a particular fattie is something like 8%.
Dropping a 2nd Wayfinder turn 3 yields a 31% chance of hitting at least one of your six fatties (supposing you hit none of them the first time).

Now, it has been awhile since I did stats and I am not a math major but that looks right to me.

Also, I agree with the -1 land, -1 Rager for 2X Pelakka Wurms. Those are seriously the most common green card in the game.

You're probably right about Nemesis. My only complaint with Nemesis is that any token can block it, it has no evasion. Like I said originally, maybe its just my luck vs decks that run Rescue, hence me adding a Suffer the Past. i'll check out the Dimir deck, thanks1

suggestion - find a room for 1-of reclamation sage, this archetype has so many ways to fetch him/retrigger him when needed. and you usually have other things to do with your mana when there is nothing to destroy.
Playing against golgari I find it hard to penetrate the swarm with creatures, but I win quite often with things like sanguine bond, blasting station, sphinx-bone wand, warstorm surge, etc...

I used a hypergeometric calculator to get to my numbers, which is what most people use when it comes to MTG.

For a T2 Wayfinder:

Population size would be 52 (cards left in deck if on the play)
Number of successes in population is the number of fatties (assuming they're not in hand)
Sample size is number of milled cards (I used 3 for both Wayfinder and Assistant)
Number of successes in sample is the number of fatties you want to hit (so 1)

Then I looked at the results for P(X >= 1), in case we hit more than 1.

There are obviously a lot of factors that can change things, so all estimates will be rough.



Elder is certainly a good option in this type of deck, but since you're cycling with almost every creature you cast, your hand will almost never be empty. So I would rather be casting more creatures and end the game with a fatty than having to spend mana to activate the Elder which can be more easily killed unless you play him on T7.

In my deck the small creatures are more a distraction for the opponent and not the real wincondition, although against poorly built decks they certainly get there a lot.

Nemesis of Mortals was the last card I cut, as I wasn't very happy about it in previous builds. It not having Trample really hurts the card in a format full of weenies, random Wall of Omens, Cloudshifts and now Young Pyromancers.



I used to have a 1-of Sage in my previous build, since games could go long and destroying a key enchantment or artifact would be great. With Craterhoof games don't go as long anymore. Tutoring a Reclamation Sage with a Demon is not worth it when you can just get a Craterhoof and win the game.

I've updated the list to include an extra Pelakka Wurm:

How is Masked Admirers? I think I'd rather just play Draggers because the card draw is cheaper and it has better stats as a hardcast, plus it's a Zombie for Graveborn Muse. Admirers just looks terribly inefficient and I can't imagine you'd want to sink that much mana into it basically ever. I could be wrong, though.

I tried playing Masked Admirers but they perfomred terribly so I cut them

They're ok as a mana sink, and for double blocking.. but their best attribute is with synergy with Timberwatch Elf.

As a primary control player, Masked admirers is extremely obnoxious. Forces you to find a wincon faster because it gives the other guy a way to attrition you out. Godamn 2x limit on anger.

Honestly, I wouldn't want too many zombies in play. I prefer only drawing 1 extra card every turn and losing 1.
The admirers are not spectacular, but in a slower game they do generate a lot of value.
They also fit well in the curve, as there aren't many other 4-drops.

I think paying 2 mana to cycle without putting a creature in play is not good enough in this deck.

If I could start the game with three phyrexian arenas in play, I'd do it. The card draw is certainly worth the life loss, even through overdraw.